On Media

'Meet The Press' finishes distant third, again

By DYLAN BYERS

03/27/2014 10:18 AM EDT

NBC's "Meet The Press" finished a distant third in both total viewership and the demo this week, marking yet another devastating loss in what has been a brutal winter for the former king of Sunday morning public affairs programming.

"Meet" brought in just 2.804 million viewers for its March 23 program, far behind ABC's "This Week" with 3.400 million and CBS's "Face The Nation," which topped with 3.938 million. In the demo, "Meet" had just 805,000 viewers, trailing ABC's 1.053 million and CBS's 1.177 million.

Though NBC's viewership was up slightly from the week beforehand, the poor showing marked the fourth time in five weeks that "Meet" has come in third place.

The Sunday show ratings race has been fiercely competitive since 2013, when CBS ended NBC's 15-year run as the undisputed king in total and 18-year run as the undisputed king in the demo. In 2014, "Meet" has only finished first in total viewers twice, while both "Week" and "Face" have taken the top-slot five times, including this week's numbers.